With President Trump threatening daily to 'go to war' against Mayors and Governors of cities and states who refuse to submit to his ever-more fascistic intentions, combined with his blatantly illegal activation of U.S. military forces against American citizens, the new film, Democracy Noir, could not be more cautionary or timely. The heartbeat of American democracy has become arrhythmic in just six months. It's crystal clear that Academy Award-nominated Director Connie Field is hoping her new, chilling documentary, defibrillates Americans, before our democracy flatlines.
The film follows the rise of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has throttled the spread of Hungarian democracy since 1998. He's achieved this by consolidating power through intimidation, manipulation and numerous social and military actions evoked against Hungarians. Hungarians who still strive for freedom understand what has been lost. Had they united and taken a stand against Orban's at first subtle, then blatant embrace of autocracy, they may have succeeded in derailing his plot to enslave their countrymen.
Running for re-election in 2022, Orban claimed, as he had in the past, that he won 'in a landslide'. He and his oligarchic cronies provide zero substantiative proof of that claim, burying election results before they're publicly tabulated.
To achieve his goals, Orban also chased away any media he didn't like, shut down universities and built friendships with other strongmen such as Russia's Putin and Turkey's Erdogan, taking cues from their policies.
Using the experiences of three Hungarian women, opposition politician Timea, journalist Babett, and nurse Nikoletta (Niko), Director Field details how Orban's associates gerrymandered maps and changed election laws to personally enrich himself. The women detail the demolition of democratic institutions, especially the free press, over which the Hungarian autocracts took almost complete control.
Once Orban usurped public media, only two independent stations remained on air; this was the press' worst nightmare come to pass.
Though the EU attempted to defend Hungarian democracy and Hungarian citizens, and a constitutional court found everything Orban had done was unconstitutional, their findings were impotent. Orban simply cleared the court and put his cronies in charge.
Hungarians, like too many Americans, fell for the same strongman's lie: that the leader they put in power would make their country 'more secure'. In reality, Orban ruined healthcare and destroyed pensions. He stole public funds and re-allocated them to benefit his friends and relatives. He destroyed public parks to build museums that glorified HIS vision of Hungary. Labor shortages emerged, due to huge swaths of oppressed young people fleeing Hungary, and forced those who remained behind into unpaid overtime positions. The Hungarians call it the 'slave laws', and rebelled against them. Further, the State redefined 'family' as only man/woman.
Sounds familiar? It should. By using what befell Hungary as her canary, Field throws a glaring spotlight on that which the world is keeping a close eye: America's ever-quickening march towards a political doctrine of Evangelical Christian authoritarianism. A doctrine with zero separation of Church and State. This is NOT what America's founding fathers envisioned when they drafted the Constitution in 1787.
The parallels between Hungary and the U.S. don't end there. Nurses are spending their own money to pay for their patient's medicines. Just as Trump has done in America, just as every authoritarian does in every country, Orban fully targeted immigrants as the 'enemy of the state', using them as scapegoats for the country's ills. Ills that he, himself, created. Orban takes the depersonalization of immigrants a step further, encouraging his military to shoot immigrants at the border.
Have we, in America, reached that same point of depravity? Some Americans want to do just that. In November 2024, two founders of a militia group were convicted by a federal jury in Missouri of conspiracy to murder federal agents and plotting to shoot immigrants at the southern border.
Reports have emerged that both Donald Trump and Governor Greg Abbot discussed shooting immigrants at that border. In a January 2024 radio interview, Abbott stated that his administraton was not shooting immigrants at the border because 'the Biden administration would charge us with murder'. It sometimes feels as if the violent rhetoric from the administration has no limits; thankfully cooler Judiciary heads still prevail in America. But for how much longer?
Viktor Orban attended CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Extolling his virtues were none other than Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, anchor-turned-MAGA politician and head of Voice of America Kari Lake and U.S. Representative Paul Gossar. Matt Schlapp, the head of CPAC, claims Orban is a 'beacon of truth'. McMahon states, 'Orban is amazing', like a schoolgirl with a crush. If you are still disbelieving that what happened in Hungary can't happen here, I urge you to reconsider the facts of the matter.
Democracy Noir is excruciatingly disturbing to watch for anyone cognizant of current events in America. The EU declared that 'Orban is dangerous, not just for Hungary but for all of Europe'. The same feelings are reportedly circulating among heads of state in Europe, regarding the current U.S. leadership. Everything within this review regarding the destruction of Democracy in Hungary is detailed in Democracy Noir. Every student of history, every citizen concerned with the direction we're taking in this country, needs to watch this film; it's a film that America's White House will certainly look to censor.
Democracy Noir is currently showing in NYC and will be rolled out to LA and select markets after September 19. In Focus-Magazine.com is thankful they were able to preview this extraordinarily important film.
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